Back in the day, before the Romans called it Mare Nostrum, the Mediterranean Sea belonged to the Phoenicians. In case you’ve forgotten them, the Phoenicians not only dominated sea trade for nearly a millennium, they developed the first verified alphabet.
Cadiz, originally called Gadir, isn’t on the Mediterranean but in the Atlantic. Founded by the Phoenicians between 900 and 700 BCE, Cadiz is believed to be the most ancient city still standing in Western Europe and I stumbled upon one of its ancient wonders on line, the Yacimiento Arquelógico Gadir. But first we had to find it!
From high aboard “Mardi Gras” Cadiz seemed easy to navigate—we could plainly see the cathedral. Once we were among the narrow twisting alleys, it was a different story. It took us most of the morning to find the Gadir Archeological Site where we were lucky to score two of the 25 reservations for a visit after lunch.
The site wasn’t discovered until 1980 and how it remained hidden in the middle of Cadiz is a puzzlement! And it still remains pretty much hidden, just a small sign and an obscure ticket window hint at what’s inside. The guided tour, Spanish first then English for Connie and me, took us back in time on a glass platform with bird’s-eye views of the a sardine processing plant from the Roman era and the remains of a Phoenician dwelling found under it.
The Romans filled the giant vats with sardines and slowly squished out the liquids for fish sauce. Nouc mam, anyone? They supplied water to the process via lead pipes, one of which is still in situ. As has been the case throughout history, Roman garbage and rubble was dumped onto the existing Phoenician settlement to level the ground, providing a treasure trove for archeologists. One of the most notable relics, to us at least, is a cat skeleton.
The Phoenician house had four rooms with the foundation for the walls marked in brown gravel. We could plainly identify the kitchen—the domed oven for making flatbread was hard to miss. Likewise the broken crockery. And we had to photograph the skeleton of a Phoenician male who died about 2800 years ago. DNA testing from one of his molars identified him as a local with roots in Tyre. Ain’t science amazing.
By the time we worked our way back to the ship we had covered seven miles and had seen quite a bit of the old city of Cadiz.
